On 10/04/2017 19:58, Christopher Head wrote: > On April 9, 2017 7:04:13 PM PDT, "William L. Thomson Jr." <wlt...@o-sinc.com> > wrote: >> The present system is a PITA for users. Fiddling with adding/removing >> targets for Python/Ruby. > > As an ordinary user, that does sound like a real annoyance. As an ordinary > user, I also never do it. I don’t have any targets set by hand. I probably > never will. And yes, I do some Python development myself (not much packaging > but “using” Python in the sense of writing Python code). I find the Python > experience largely painless: I currently have 2.7.12 and 3.4.5 installed. > Eventually 3.5 will get installed and 3.4 will go away. Just like every other > package. I won’t need to do any config file editing, just a revdep-rebuild > run perhaps. So regardless of the situation for maintainers, as a user, I > don’t see this pain. >
As another regular user, you most definitely will see this pain if you need to deviate from your profile defaults for python. I'm like you - use lots of python, package some, write some. I also don't go past the current ~arch python-3 because I have a good sense of what waits for me if I do. That you and I don't suffer too much breakage at all since years now is a testament that *someone* is touching all those ebuilds when they need to be touched, that they are managing to do it without much visible fallout is a minor engineering miracle or sheer hard work. I think William has a point; sometimes making a criteria a negative one result in a lot less work. A good survey usually gives numbers that let you tell if it will. -- Alan McKinnon alan.mckin...@gmail.com
